CityLab | Lydia Leehttps://www.citylab.com/authors/lydia-lee/2016-01-22T11:45:28-05:00Copyright 2019 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All Rights Reserved.<p><a href="http://livecannerydavis.com/" target="_blank">The Cannery</a>, a new planned development in Davis, California, is located on the site of a 1961 Hunt-Wesson factory, which canned its last tomatoes in 1999. Today, the Cannery’s only link with its industrial past is the name. The new 547-unit development is an ode to the locavore lifestyle.</p><p><!-- START "SPECIAL REPORT" BOX --></p><aside class="callout special-report"><hr><h4 class="module-tag">Series</h4>
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<hr></aside><p><!-- END "SPECIAL REPORT" BOX -->Developed by the conventional (high-end) homebuilder the New Home Company, it has a community clubhouse designed to look like a traditional white farmhouse, and its own five-acre organic farm, which will sell some of the produce to residents.</p><p>“It’s an interesting model for how you might introduce agriculture in places that might not have had it before,” says Joe Runco, principal at <a href="http://www.swagroup.com/" target="_blank">SWA</a>, the firm that did the master planning and landscape design. “The farm is small enough to be part of the neighborhood, but it’s also more than a community garden.”</p><figure class="right"><img alt="" height="549" src="https://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/posts/2016/01/NHCs203_SMALL_BUILDER_TRIFOLD_ILLUSTRATIVE_WITH_LEGEND_150707/e64bc2d8a.jpg" width="375"><figcaption class="caption">Map of the development, with the farm at the right (Courtesy of SWA)</figcaption></figure><p>Planned developments that incorporate a farm are known as “agrihoods” and are catching on across the country. “They’re becoming the new golf-course community,” says Ed McMahon, senior resident fellow at the Urban Land Institute, who estimates there are about 200 such neighborhoods around the country. “They represent the values of Millennials—a convergence of food, health, local ties, and the sharing economy.”</p><p>The Cannery shows how all the pieces can fit together within a project that checks off many New Urbanist boxes. There’s a small retail/commercial center, and residents can walk or bike to downtown Davis, which is about a mile away. Only a third of the housing will be single-family homes; a range of townhouses, condominiums, and apartments should attract a multi-age community.</p><p>The density of 5.5 units per acre (or 8.6, minus the farmland and parks) is higher than the 3 to 4 units per acre of traditional suburbs—although only slightly. The townhouses are selling for upwards of $400,000 and the single-family homes for $700,000 and up; agriburbia doesn’t come cheap. But with 60 units of affordable housing, the development will have some economic diversity.</p><p>For planners and land conservationists, agrihoods can be a useful tool for preserving existing farmland. Earlier communities, like <a href="http://www.prairiecrossing.com/" target="_blank">Prairie Crossing</a> in Illinois and <a href="http://www.southvillage.com/" target="_blank">South Village</a> in Vermont, were established to ward off wholesale development.</p><p>“Planned developments are a zoning tool that is well-suited to development-supported agriculture, since they allow for effective master planning and combinations of diverse land uses that are difficult to achieve with traditional, Euclidean-style zoning,” says Jennifer Henaghan, deputy research director at the American Planning Association. <span>The Cannery was just named</span><span> </span><span>“master-planned community of the year</span><span>” by the National Association of Home Builders. </span><span> </span></p><figure class="full-width"><img alt="" height="575" src="https://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/posts/2016/01/The_Cannery_Tom_Fox_1445/3815cc8fd.jpg" width="940"><figcaption class="caption">A group of townhouses at the Cannery (Photograph by Tom Fox, SWA)</figcaption></figure><p>Cities can encourage agrihoods through local ordinances. The City of Davis is concerned about maintaining its bucolic surroundings in California’s Central Valley, and it established an urban growth boundary back in 2000; it also requires any new development bordering a farm to have a 300-foot buffer of undeveloped land.</p><figure class="right"><img alt="" height="250" src="https://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/posts/2016/01/The_Cannery_Tom_Fox_1249/7da774715.jpg" width="375"><figcaption class="caption">One building was designed to store farm equipment. (Photograph by Tom Fox, SWA)</figcaption></figure><p>The Cannery had open fields along its eastern border, so was required to have a buffer. The developer could have put in landscaping, but opted to create a narrow farm instead.</p><p>Ensuring the long-term sustainability of the farm is an important part of the puzzle. Some agrihoods have long-term leases with commercial farmers. Another model is to set up “incubator” farms that allow new farmers to launch their careers on a small scale. The Cannery’s farm is under the stewardship of the <a href="http://landbasedlearning.org/" target="_blank">Center for Land-Based Learning</a>, a local nonprofit that trains farmers. It will lease the land to its recent graduates.</p><p>“Access to land and capital are the biggest challenges new farmers face, so these incubator farms are a great way to get started,” says the center’s executive director, Mary Kimball. Three farmers are scheduled to start operations at the Cannery this spring, with plans for a community farm stand and a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program.</p><p>The idea of being vicarious farmers is deeply appealing to future residents like Mylon and Samrina Marshall, doctors who have lived in Davis for 20 years. “We don’t have a green thumb,” says Samrina, “but we love going to the farmers market and eating locally and what is in season.” After moving in this summer, they hope to get one of their staples, organic heirloom tomatoes, from their own neighborhood farm. It’<span>s</span> a vision of the good life that is primed to reshape many American suburbs.</p>Lydia Leehttp://www.citylab.com/authors/lydia-lee/?utm_source=feedPhotograph by Tom Fox, SWAThe Cannery's farm, waiting for the first crops to be planted.Farming the Subdivision2016-01-22T11:45:00-05:002016-01-22T11:45:28-05:00tag:citylab.com,2016:209-425139<span>A new &ldquo;agrihood&rdquo; in California&rsquo;s Central Valley reworks a former tomato-canning plant into an aspirational suburb.</span><p>While tourists flock to San Francisco's historic Fisherman's Wharf in search of spectacular bay views and clam chowder, the city's southeastern shoreline, conversely, is a <em>Mad Max</em>-like landscape frequented mainly by rumbling trucks.</p><p>In the Bayview-Hunters Point neigborhood, a long section of the coast is blocked by a fence topped with barbed wire, which has been there about as long as anyone can remember. For 40 years, the site was occupied by a huge <a href="https://baynature.org/articles/hunters-point-power-plant-controversy/" target="_blank">PG&amp;E power plant with towering smokestacks</a>.</p><figure class="right"><img alt="" height="263" src="https://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/posts/2015/02/AP01040602908/33a86ebe1.jpg" width="400"><figcaption class="caption">The Hunters Point plant in 2001 (Justin Sullivan/AP)</figcaption></figure><p><span>Bayview-Hunters Point is a traditionally blue-collar, African-American neighborhood, but it is changing, due in part to the city's real-estate pressures. The closest area to the power-plant site is Hunters View, which made HUD's list of the </span><a href="http://www.sfgate.com/health/article/Hunters-View-not-Sunnydale-ranks-as-S-F-s-2506977.php" target="_blank">worst housing developments</a><span> in the country. It is now being completely redeveloped in a separate city-sponsored project that will replace the public housing and adds some market-rate units.</span></p><p>After <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/SAN-FRANCISCO-PG-E-to-shutter-Hunters-Point-2503012.php" target="_blank">prolonged lobbying efforts</a> by environmental justice activists in the community, the aging Hunters View plant was finally dismantled in 2008. What will take its place is being determined in stages, a more organic approach that takes into account the psychological as well as the physical rehabilitation of the site.</p><div class="city-makers-embed-code">
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<p><span style="line-height: 1.52941;">"We're hoping to transition this place from a forbidden no-go zone to a place of joy—how do you change this relationship from one of fear?" says architect Douglas Burnham of Berkeley-based firm </span><a href="http://www.envelopead.com/" style="line-height: 1.52941;">Envelope A+D</a><span style="line-height: 1.52941;">, which is leading the design efforts.</span></p>
</div><p>The value of this 32-acre waterfront property would be considerable, but the utility company, one of California's largest landholders, is in no rush to turn the land over to developers. At Hunters Point, PG&amp;E hopes to establish a new model for how it deals with decommissioned property, going beyond soil and groundwater remediation to integrate it with the community.</p><p>"We're testing out a number of interim uses in order to come up with a plan that will be compatible with the neighborhood around it," says San Francisco-based consultant Jonathan Manzo, who is managing the project for PG&amp;E and is working to bring back the company's tradition of <a href="http://ohp.parks.ca.gov/pages/1067/files/pge_powerhouse_2009_westelevation2.jpg" target="_blank">grand public infrastructure</a>.</p><p>Several years ago, Burnham's firm created a successful temporary project called <a href="http://www.envelopead.com/proj_octaviakl.html">Proxy</a> in the fashionable neighborhood of Hayes Valley; housed in shipping containers, the industrial-chic complex of eateries and retailers looks to be a <a href="http://hoodline.com/2013/06/proxy-project-extended-for-8-years">permanent fixture</a> now. In its pitch to PG&amp;E for this very different site, the design team talked about putting on a series of community events that would function as live prototyping for the long-term uses. "We did not want to draw up a huge master plan, deliver it fully baked in a presentation, and simply take a couple of questions," says Burnham.</p><p>The team began by conducting one-on-one interviews with about a dozen community leaders, who had worked with PG&amp;E's environmental remediation team. "We didn't get very far when we asked, 'What should we put on the site?' The direct question wasn't the right question," says designer <a href="http://lizogbu.com/" target="_blank">Liz Ogbu</a>, who is leading the team's community engagement and social innovation strategy.</p><p>"The residents had never been on the site before," Ogbu says. "By asking about their lives, we got real data. We heard about the fear of gentrification, worries about their kids at risk of falling into a gang and getting a gun."</p><figure class="full-width"><img alt="" height="627" src="https://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/posts/2015/02/AnneHamersky_13032_envelope_PGE_StoryCorps_00892/fe13ec15e.jpg" width="940"><figcaption class="caption">Preparing the site for the StoryCorps project (Anne Hamersky)</figcaption></figure><p>Inspired by the vivid stories that were emerging, the design team reached out to <a href="http://storycorps.org/about/" target="_blank">StoryCorps</a>, the nationwide oral history project that captures stories of under-represented communities, and asked them to start recording at Hunters View. Instead of a bare-bones recording space, the team wanted to have a place where residents would feel welcome and comfortable as they recounted their memories of living in the shadow of the power plant. They created a <a href="http://www.nowhunterspoint.com/nowhunters-point-storycorps-sessions/82ociovbzxn28596mfklgwzi6ed50t" target="_blank">listening booth</a>, using a shipping container as a quick and economical structure.</p><p>Since shipping containers were commonplace rather than exotic in this industrial context, they covered it with a cool geometric canopy. They also glammed up the inside with toile wallpaper and upholstered wingback chairs. A giant picture window opens to a view of the bay and the former power-plant site.</p><p>"It's supposed to be a little like your grandma's living room," says Ogbu. "People eye the building a little suspiciously, and then when they come through the door, they say, 'Oh my God!'"</p><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="281" mozallowfullscreen="" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/109815248" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="500"></iframe><p><a href="https://vimeo.com/109815248">listening_NOW_hunters point</a> from <a href="https://vimeo.com/envelopead">envelope A+D</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p><p>Over the course of a year, StoryCorps has recorded more than 20 interviews here, each about an hour in length. To share these stories with the community, the design team came up with the concept of a listening party. Similar to a neighborhood block party, these events have started with a barbeque and a lot of socializing before everyone sits down to listen to edited excerpts from the interviews.</p><figure class="right"><img alt="" height="243" src="https://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/posts/2015/02/Ogbu_Liz_2007_e1374216523304/9d82f1ada.jpg" width="300"><figcaption class="caption">Liz Ogbu</figcaption></figure><p>The storytelling has been integral to establishing a sense of rapport. "The process has been really important for transparency," Ogbu says. "So much here [had] happened behind closed doors."</p><p>Besides this informal information-gathering, the design team has also been collecting suggestion cards from the other events they've hosted on the site, which include a local circus, a traveling petting zoo, and a kite day. Based on the responses, they've begun planning the next temporary structure—this one on a much larger scale.</p><p>According to Burnham, it will take the form of a big tent that can accommodate 200 people inside and 3,000 people outside. The concept is a flexible space that can serve as a classroom for job training or youth activities, with shared amenities like a community kitchen.</p><p>"Cities are typically developed as a crazy patchwork of developer schemes," Burnham says. "Here, we're able to look at more than just the transactional value of the land. This is about supporting a community."</p>Lydia Leehttp://www.citylab.com/authors/lydia-lee/?utm_source=feedAnne HamerskyThe interior of the Hunters Point listening boothHow an Audio Booth Changed the Conversation Around a Major S.F. Redevelopment Project2015-02-18T13:30:00-05:002015-02-18T13:31:26-05:00tag:citylab.com,2015:209-385582The team reviving a former power plant in <span>Bayview-Hunters Point</span> partnered with StoryCorps, and the community response was pretty incredible.<p>As Midwesterners and East Coasters prepare to receive another several inches of snow, pedestrians in a small neighborhood in Ann Arbor, Michigan, can rest assured. They know that <a href="snowbuddy.org">SnowBuddy</a> will clear the way for their commuter walks or errands to nearby downtown. The 32-horsepower tractor, outfitted with special attachments, clears the Water Hill neighborhood’s 12 miles of sidewalks after a big storm. Paid for by community-pooled donations and operated by a volunteer force, the little tractor represents a major step towards collectivizing what has traditionally been a private responsibility.</p><p>“Pedestrians deserve a respectful transportation experience, and the sidewalk is fundamentally a transportation corridor,” says SnowBuddy’s lead organizer, Paul Tinkerhess, a 30-year resident of Ann Arbor. “When you look at it that way, it’s absurd to think that many cities assign winter maintenance of sidewalks to homeowners.”</p><!-- START "SPECIAL REPORT" BOX --><aside class="callout special-report"><hr><h4 class="module-tag">CityFixer</h4>
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<hr></aside><!-- END "SPECIAL REPORT" BOX --><p>Tinkerhess reached this conclusion after last year’s brutal winter, the snowiest on record for Ann Arbor and many other Midwestern cities. He maneuvered a dangerous patchwork of shoveled and un-shoveled sidewalks on his daily walks to work. At his shoe store downtown, he saw demand rise for boots with carbide studs, which offer more traction on ice.</p><p>“I came gradually to understand that that a system that assigns sidewalk maintenance to every homeowner will never function well for the pedestrian,” he says. “Eight out of 10 walkways might be cleared, but there is always going to be someone who is sick or out of town or just hasn’t gotten around to it yet.”</p><figure class="full-width"><img alt="" height="705" src="https://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/posts/2015/02/fb_snowbuddy/ade2e8656.jpg" width="940"><figcaption class="caption">The SnowBuddy in action. (<a href="http://facebook.com/snowbuddy.org">facebook.com/snowbuddy.org</a>)</figcaption></figure><p>Ann Arbor is hardly unusual in placing the onus on residents to keep the sidewalks outside their residences clear of ice and snow. While sidewalks are public, <a href="http://homeguides.sfgate.com/cost-sidewalk-repair-102847.html">in just about every city</a>, their upkeep and maintenance—from clearing snow to <a href="http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2012/07/amid_slippery_laws_towns_take.html">repairing cracks</a>—is the responsibility of the adjacent property owner.</p><p>This allocation of responsibilities stems from how sidewalks have historically been financed: Unlike roads, which are paid for with federal, state, and local taxes, sidewalks are <a href="https://www.planning.org/pas/at60/report95.htm">local improvements</a>, funded through property-developer fees or special-assessment districts. Like many cities in the past few years, Ann Arbor has adopted a <a href="http://www.smartgrowthamerica.org/complete-streets/complete-streets-fundamentals/complete-streets-faq">Complete Streets</a> policy, which raises the status of sidewalks. Its resolution reads, in part: “A ‘Complete Street’ is one planned, designed, and maintained to comfortably accommodate pedestrians, cyclists, transit riders, and motorists of all ages and ability levels.”</p><p>Tinkerhess decided to see if he could mobilize a community sidewalk-snow-clearing service funded with the model popular with public radio stations: Provide the service for free to the neighborhood, then ask for donations to offset the costs once it was up and running. As the co-creator of the popular <a href="waterhill.org">Water Hill Music Fest</a>, Tinkerhess was already a recognized leader in the community. It took only a couple of weeks to raise the $18,000 in startup funds that the board of the SnowBuddy (now registered as a formal nonprofit) had set as their first goal. It was enough to buy a $43,000 tractor on a four-year plan and still have some funds to cover their estimated expenses of $25,000 a year—including a $2 million liability insurance policy.</p><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="338" mozallowfullscreen="" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/118748673?color=9086c0" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="600"></iframe><p>This winter, the SnowBuddy tractor has already made its 8-hour circuit around the neighborhood's sidewalks about 10 times. In addition to 12 volunteer tractor drivers, others have signed up for the "windrow patrol": They shovel away the piles of ice and snow pushed up by road snowplows that block the ends of sidewalks at intersections.</p><p><span style="line-height: 1.52941;">While gratified by the community response, Tinkerhess would ultimately like to see the city take on the job of clearing sidewalks. “We want to make an example of what a neighborhood looks like through the winter if its walks are all kept clear,” he says. “But equally important, we want to encourage our city officials to consider taking this task from us, since they are the rightful administrators of the transportation corridors.”</span></p><p>Ann Arbor mayor Christopher Taylor is sympathetic. “SnowBuddy is an exciting project where people are working together for a common purpose to make their community better," he says. "It is regrettably impractical in our current fiscal environment for the city to take [clearing snow from sidewalks] on ourselves, but I’m delighted that residents have taken it on their own initiative.” Taylor points to a 2011 tax increase that transferred the burden of fixing sidewalk cracks from property owners to the city as a first step.</p><p>Meanwhile SnowBuddy is generating cooperative enthusiasm among an increasing number of local residents. “It’s a lifesaver,” says Christine Schopieray, a 20-year homeowner in Water Hill who walks to her job in downtown Ann Arbor. “It’s nice to see that people are chipping in and doing this. I hope it keeps going.”</p>Lydia Leehttp://www.citylab.com/authors/lydia-lee/?utm_source=feedPaul TinkerhessThe SnowBuddy tractor, driven and funded by volunteers, clears all 12 miles of sidewalk of the Water Hill neighborhood of Ann Arbor, Michigan.A Community Approach to Clearing Snow From Sidewalks 2015-02-06T07:00:00-05:002015-02-06T07:00:11-05:00tag:citylab.com,2015:209-385173In most places, sidewalk snow-clearing is left to individual homeowners. In Ann Arbor, one neighborhood decided to pool its resources instead.<p>About 10 miles west of central London, Hanwell is one of the towns that sits along the River Brent, a tributary of the Thames. As is true with many urban rivers, the Brent is bordered by concrete walls as it flows through towns and has been heavily polluted by industrial effluent and sewage.</p><p>Recently, a local environmental nonprofit called the Canal and River Trust wanted to restore the natural riverbank, but was thwarted from taking out the concrete retaining walls because of concerns over flooding. But the group found a clever alternative—a system of floating wetlands that would bring back the natural edge.</p><figure class="right"><img alt="" height="290" src="https://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/posts/2014/11/hanwell_installed-2/9efa4d40d.png" width="425"><figcaption class="caption">The Biomatrix system on a bank of the River Brent at Hanwell,<br>
shortly after installation (Biomatrix Water)</figcaption></figure><p>Within a year of installing the system, the riverbank has been utterly transformed, the diversity of plant species has gone from three to 30, and dragonfly larvae—a good indicator of water cleanliness—are in abundance.</p><p>The particular system at Hanwell was designed by Scottish company <a href="http://www.biomatrixwater.com/" target="_blank">Biomatrix Water</a>, which has worked on projects with global architecture and landscape design firms such as AECOM and SWA. It is one of a handful of companies offering commercial versions of a simple concept: a floating platform that gives plants and animals a place to live in rivers, harbors, and other urbanized waterways.</p><div class="city-makers-embed-code">
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<p>Biomatrix Water was founded in 2008 by Galen Fulford, an environmental designer and activist; Michael Shaw, an engineer and wastewater treatment expert; and Lisa Shaw (Michael's daughter), an ecological artist. In their previous venture, Ecovillage International, the partners worked extensively on water access and sanitation in Bolivia, Hong Kong, and India, before focusing on floating-island technology for cities.</p>
<p>"We had this vision of the future 'urban wilds,' with lots of habitats that are rich and thriving within the urban environment," Fulford says. "Waterways are so important for habitat and biodiversity. They are the low-hanging fruit, where a little bit of engineering can have a big impact."</p>
</div><figure class="right"><img alt="" height="293" src="https://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/posts/2014/11/hanwell_after/c53500ad4.png" width="425"><figcaption class="caption">The same spot on the River Brent, nine months later. It looks<br>
completely natural. (Biomatrix Water)</figcaption></figure><p>The Biomatrix design consists of a base of recyclable plastic and stainless steel that is designed to last 50 to 100 years; it is secured to posts along the bank or anchored below, allowing it to rise and fall with the water level. To jump-start the restoration process, it is planted with native water plants. Over time, the floating nurseries are colonized by wild plants that take advantage of this new waterfront. They provide much-needed shelter for fish, waterfowl, and birds.</p><p>In addition to measurable increases in biodiversity, research on floating wetlands reports significant improvement in water quality, showing reduced levels of organic matter, suspended solids, agricultural runoff, and metals. Floating wetlands can also boost traditional methods of water treatment. In one study, a system from <a href="http://www.floatingislandinternational.com/" target="_blank">Floating Island International</a> of Montana, installed in a wastewater lagoon, was able to remove <a href="http://www.waterworld.com/articles/print/volume-28/issue-6/editorial-features/floating-wetlands-help-boost--nitrogen-removal-in-lagoons.html" target="_blank">52 percent more nitrogen</a>—a major problem stemming from agricultural runoff—than another lagoon on its own.</p><figure class="left"><img alt="" height="289" src="https://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/posts/2014/11/hickin_lake/0b1e673c6.png" width="425"><figcaption class="caption">A floating island in Hicklin Lake reduces algae blooms.<br>
(Biomatrix Water)</figcaption></figure><p>Biomatrix Water has installed floating islands in <a href="http://www.walpa.org/waterline/september-2013/floating-islands-pioneered-in-hicklin-lake-to-improve-water-quality/" target="_blank">Hicklin Lake, Seattle,</a> and is currently working on a harborside nature trail in Bristol in southwest England, as well as a 1.2-mile riverfront project in Zhenjiang, China. "These technologies provide a toehold for natural systems to take root," Fulford says. "There is real potential for nature and humanity to work together."</p>Lydia Leehttp://www.citylab.com/authors/lydia-lee/?utm_source=feeddominique landau/ShutterstockCleaning Up Urban Waterways With Manmade Islands 2014-11-18T10:50:00-05:002014-11-18T10:53:04-05:00tag:citylab.com,2014:209-382820The brains behind Scotland&#39;s Biomatrix Water use flotillas of plants to filter polluted water and soften concrete riverbanks. <!--EndFragment--><p>In a sense, municipal water systems are infuriatingly inefficient. They maintain an extensive network of pipes and pumps to bring fresh water into the city—along with a sewer system that flushes rainwater down the drain.</p><p>One egregious example is Los Angeles, which imports the large majority of its water, at great cost, from hundreds of miles away in the Colorado River Basin, the eastern Sierras, and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Yet according to Southern California's Metropolitan Water District, 82 percent of the city's water needs could be met locally, through recycling, conservation, and the strategic harvesting of rainwater.</p><p>This is the big organizing concept behind the current work of the <a href="http://aridlands.org/">Arid Lands Institute</a>, a tiny design think tank run by Peter and Hadley Arnold at Woodbury University in L.A. Both trained as architects, they are now spending their time not on designing futuristic buildings, but on creating a giant model of the L.A. region—a "hydrologic zoning overlay," says Hadley—that lets city staff, developers, and designers alike see beneath the surface and design appropriately to capture this precious resource.</p><p>The project is called <a href="http://aridlands.org/project/where-it-lets-reuse-it">Divining LA: Drylands City Design for the Next 100 Years</a>, and a central part of it is the development of a software application called Hazel (named after the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dowsing">traditional divining rod</a>) to make it easy to comprehend and navigate the region's <span>hydrologic information</span>. The model shows such things as areas of contaminated land, where water would be better captured in rooftop cisterns; and where it make sense to install permeable paving and allow rain to replenish groundwater supplies.</p><p>"Cities are currently designed to rid us of rainwater as fast as we can, to mitigate flood concerns," Peter Arnold says. "Instead, cities could be more like sponges." If this approach gains ground in L.A., it could be a potent model for parched regions worldwide.</p><div class="city-makers-embed-code">
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<iframe scrolling="no" seamless="seamless" src="https://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/files/embeds/city-makers-bug/index.html" style="width: 100%;max-width: 620px;height: 300px;border:0"></iframe></div><p>The Arnolds became inspired to become waterbearers in the environmental movement in the mid-1990s. After architecture school, they started their own practice, while pursuing other projects of interest on the side. Peter, who also does large-format landscape photography, received a couple of grants to shoot <a href="http://places.designobserver.com/feature/drylands-water-infrastructure-and-the-west/32968/">panoramic images of water infrastructure</a> as a form of environmental criticism.</p><p>"I could see how all the sources of water we depended on were these highly contrived and engineered things, and how water was shaping our own settlement patterns and urbanism," he says. "People used to organize ourselves around what water was available, but then we moved to the 'Let's deliver water' approach, which flattens out topography and culture."</p><figure class="full-width"><img alt="" height="613" src="https://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/posts/2014/09/Boom_Map_2013_08_10_export_2500pxWide_72dpi_opt/3be1c92e2.jpg" width="940"><figcaption class="caption">A geospatial model showing where stormwater can be captured in the San Fernando Valley (Arid Lands Institute)</figcaption></figure><p>Leveraging his undergraduate degree in environmental design and physics, Peter began to work with GIS software to create models that combine topography, soil types, groundwater resources, contamination sites, and development at a very granular level. The Arnolds support their work with federal grants from HUD and the EPA, as well as corporate and individual donors. (Divining LA was in the running for $100,000 from <a href="http://www.la2050.org/" target="_blank">LA2050</a>'s My LA2050 Grants Challenge, but didn't win; this year's 10 winners <a href="http://www.la2050.org/index.php?it=my-la2050/" target="_blank">were just announced</a>.)</p><p>As climate change and California's severe drought make water an urgent concern, the rest of the world may be finally catching up to the Arnolds. Still, their modest office at Woodbury, which they share with a couple of architecture faculty members, consists of 16 square feet of desk space that is piled with papers. "It looks very banal, like a Congressional staffer's desk," jokes Peter. Adds Hadley, "We're lean, but not mean."</p><figure class="left"><img alt="" height="294" src="https://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/posts/2014/09/Hadley_Peter_Headshot/c3fcbddaa.jpg" width="300"><figcaption class="caption">Peter and Hadley Arnold (Arid Lands Institute)</figcaption></figure><p>While they aren't surrounded by glamorous renderings, the Arnolds are convinced that their work will eventually prompt them. "The visibility of water systems will play a huge part in bringing water back to the public consciousness," Hadley says. "That's the fun part." She expects design to move toward integrated systems, such as roofs that include cisterns, and wall packages that store water while providing a thermal advantage.</p><p>"Right now we're doing the pre-design work, making the modeling of hydrologic flow available and intelligible to the design profession," Hadley says. "We see brave, poetic, and effective acts of design coming out of it."</p>Lydia Leehttp://www.citylab.com/authors/lydia-lee/?utm_source=feedRichard Vogel/APThink Globally, Drink Water Locally2014-10-02T13:17:00-04:002014-10-02T13:18:15-04:00tag:citylab.com,2014:209-380884L.A. and other desert cities exist by importing vast quantities of water, but Peter and Hadley Arnold of the Arid Lands Institute have a different idea.